Sins Out of School

by Jeanne M. Dams

  But I’d forgotten the alibi. The one small detail that knocked the whole theory into a cocked hat.

  “I wanted it to be him,” I said, half to myself.

  “I don’t care much for the gentleman myself, but we can’t always convict people we dislike. And there’s one other objection, too, now that I think of it. Your theory offers no explanation for Gillian’s accident.”

  “It could have been an accident,” I muttered, not believing it. We sat in dispirited silence for the few minutes that remained before the train reached Sherebury.

  It had been a long and wearying day. I put the three suitcases in the spare bedroom to await the time when their owners would need them, and then put my feet up until hunger drove me to the kitchen. Scrambled eggs made a good enough supper. “It isn’t the end of the world, you know, Dorothy,” said Alan as he helped me with the dishes. “These things happen. We just have to start over.”

  “Not tonight, we don’t. My imagination, or deductive facility, or whatever you want to call it, has shut down for the day.”

  We watched the late news. Anthony Blake, thank heaven, wasn’t featured, or I think I would have thrown something through the screen. I yawned through it all but came awake for the weather, if only because someone was asleep at the switch and was still showing the map of Scotland in the background while the announcer was talking about the Channel Islands. Then Alan and I went up to bed, and I fell asleep as if I’d been hit over the head. Emotional exhaustion will do that to me.

  I woke up about four, though, with a confused dream still racing through my head. It was something about islands in Scotland, and the Scottish Parliament, and Abou Ben Adhem (“May his tribe increase”). There was a sense of urgency about it, somehow, though my fuddled night mind couldn’t untangle the images. But it took me a long time to get back to sleep, and then my dreams were the frustration ones, trying to run with heavy legs, trying to find my way out of an endless maze, thinking I had at last found the door only to find it the door to yet another room, yet another corridor.

  It wasn’t until morning, as I was sipping my third cup of coffee, that my mind suddenly focused. “Alan!” I said sharply, interrupting him as he was reading me an item about Prince Charles.

  “Mmm?”

  “Alan, when they do the weather, you know those maps? With the little clouds and sun and thunderbolts and all that?”

  “On television, you mean?”

  “Yes, of course.” I was three pages ahead of him and irrationally impatient for him to catch up. “Now the weatherman isn’t really standing in front of those maps, is he? Like last night, when they had the wrong one behind him for a while?”

  “No, as I understand it he’s in front of a blank blue wall, and something called chroma key can combine his image with an image of the map. It’s all done electronically. He can point to the right places on the wall because he’s looking at a monitor that’s out of camera range.”

  “Right. Now, back home, they used to show reporters standing in front of the White House when they were reporting on a story about the president. Only everyone knew that they probably weren’t really in front of the White House. It was done the same way, two images combined electronically. Sometimes they’d get the point of view a little bit wrong, too, so it looked like the reporter was standing too high, or too low, or just somehow not quite right.”

  “Yes,” he said patiently.

  “So how do we know, when Anthony Blake was shown on TV standing in front of the clock tower, that he was really in front of the clock tower? Couldn’t he have been someplace else entirely?”

  “I suppose so, but I remember that the time on the clock was about right. And if he was making a speech anywhere at that time, a little after eleven, he wasn’t in Sherebury killing John Doyle.”

  “He could have been if the speech was on tape.”

  “How would that work?”

  “Frankly, I haven’t the slightest idea, but I know someone who might.”

  “Gillian?”

  “Gillian. And wait a minute! We know something is odd about one of those broadcasts, because we saw Blake on TV Tuesday night, apparently in London, when Vanessa said he was in Edinburgh. Now how do you explain that?”

  “To tell the truth, I can’t. But why wouldn’t the TV chaps be there when Blake was making a speech? They’d know, surely, wouldn’t they?”

  I sighed and looked out the window. The weather had deteriorated even further. It was one of those days when the forecast might include everything: rain, sleet, freezing rain, snow, wind … every sort of nastiness that winter can dole out. A trip back to London was the last thing I wanted, but I had to talk to Gillian. I was quite sure she would provide the answers we needed.

  Alan wasn’t enthusiastic. “Dorothy, my love, this is all the purest speculation. You have no proof—”

  “And I never will have, will I, until I can work out a way it could have been done. Anyway, it isn’t entirely speculation. There’s the note. It’s real enough, and it has to be explained somehow.”

  “There must be a dozen ways to explain that note.”

  “Give me one, just one that hangs together as well as mine.”

  “I haven’t thought it out thoroughly, but the simplest explanation is often the best. Amanda had that note. Very well, the person who wrote it sent it to her.”

  “Right. If you can make that idea square with the handwriting on that note, and its content, and Amanda’s relationship with her family, I’ll buy it. Meanwhile, I’m going to London to talk to Gillian.”

  Alan grinned and threw up his hands. “There’s no arguing with a stubborn woman. Go with my blessing. If you don’t mind, I intend to sit at home in front of a nice warm computer. Just try not to get into trouble.”

  “Moi?” I said, tossing an imaginary mane of golden curls to one side.

  I wasn’t in such a bright and breezy mood when I got to the hospital. I had been struck by a fit of economy and had taken the Underground most of the way, hoping to catch a taxi for the short ride from the station to the hospital.

  The only trouble was, there weren’t any taxis. I have been told that, the minute it starts to rain in New York, all the cabs disappear, as if the pavement has swallowed them up. Now if that happened in London, given the English climate, the cab companies would go out of business. But either that particular neighborhood was just short of taxis that day, or the drivers decided that freezing rain was just too much, or something, because there wasn’t a taxi in sight and I had to walk. I had thought it a short distance. Not on foot, it wasn’t.

  I reached the hospital wet and cold. The wind had blown me along for the last block or two, and my umbrella, which had been almost useless anyway, had finally blown inside out. My shoes squished. The first thing I did was to find a ladies’ room and try to dry myself off. I think I got more shreds of paper towel on me than water off, but my feet and shoes benefited a little. I didn’t squish quite so badly as I marched down a corridor to Gillian’s ward.

  Then I thanked my lucky stars for that wind that had blown me along, for Gillian was in a wheelchair, getting ready to leave. Another minute or two and I might have been too late.

  “You must be feeling better,” was my greeting. “I can’t believe they’re letting you go home so soon.”

  “The damage has worked out to an arm broken in two places, a broken ankle, and assorted cuts and bruises. I feel bloody awful, but I’m well enough to get out of this place,” she said sourly.

  “How are Amanda and Miriam?”

  “Mandy’s conscious and making sense most of the time. I saw her this morning. God, I felt guilty! She looks like hell and it’s my fault, it must be my fault, I drive like a bat out of hell … anyway. No point in rehashing all that. Miriam’s beginning to open her eyes and babble a bit. Not what you could call conscious, but they think perhaps she’s going to be all right, given time.”

  I let out my breath, just realizing I’d been holding it. “That
’s a mercy.”

  “I suppose. That poor kid …”

  “Gillian, I don’t think any of this is your fault, so stop beating yourself. Now, are you going to be able to manage? You’re going home, I presume?”

  “Not much point in going anywhere else now the whole world knows where I am, is there? I’ll be okay. My flat’s only up one flight, and the visiting nurse will come for a while. I can walk on crutches; they’re only taking me down in the chair because of hospital rules.”

  “You’re going home with friends?”

  “Taxi. I had to prove to these cretins that I could get home under my own steam, or they wouldn’t let me leave.”

  “Then let me go with you. I want to talk to you anyway, and the cab’s on me. I just hope they’ve sent for a radio-dispatched one. There aren’t any out on the streets, believe me.”

  She looked at me, drenched and disheveled, and said, “I believe you.”

  “Right. Then I’ll meet you at the front door in five minutes. I want to say hello to Amanda.”

  Amanda was awake and looking, as Gillian had said, pretty terrible. She was obviously in a good deal of pain, but seemed reasonably alert. I hated to have to question her, but there were answers I needed.

  “Hi, Amanda, nice to see you looking better.”

  “You were here before?”

  “A couple of times, but you were pretty well out of it. I just wanted to let you know you have a bathrobe here when you’re able to get out of bed and want it. Gillian had me retrieve it from your luggage—and I have the rest of that at home, so it’s yours any time. There was a note in the pocket of the robe, and I didn’t know if it was important, so I saved it.”

  I pulled it out of my purse and handed it to her.

  “Oh, that. Yes, that was in John’s pocket when I—found him. I don’t know what it is. I suppose I should have given it to the police, but I forgot.”

  Good Lord deliver us, as the Litany says. The woman’s naivete was amazing, but bless her, she’d confirmed one part of my theory.

  “Shall I do that for you, then?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes, please.” She plucked at her bedclothes for a moment. “Did you know Miriam’s doing better? They won’t let me see her, though. Have you seen her? How is she? I wish they’d let me see her.”

  “No, I haven’t seen her, but Gillian says they think she’s going to be all right. Gillian’s going home, did you know?”

  “She told me this morning. She told me everything. I can’t believe I don’t remember anything about it.”

  “Probably just as well. Look, you’re getting tired and I’m seeing Gillian home, but I’ll be back later. Get some rest, and try not to worry about Miriam.”

  Her face, before she turned away and closed her eyes, clutched at my heart.

  33

  I’D had some time, on the train, to think about how I was going to approach Gillian. She didn’t like me very much, and I wouldn’t have called her my favorite person, either, but we had, I thought, established a certain level of wary mutual respect. So the truth was probably best.

  The truth, up to a point.

  “Gillian, are you feeling well enough to answer some questions?” I asked when she was installed in the taxi as comfortably as her injuries would allow.

  “I feel like hell, but my head is on straight, if that’s what you mean. No thanks to types like you who tried to push pain pills. Why should I answer any of your questions? Why don’t you just ask your police friends?”

  “They didn’t ask the same questions I’m going to. And I can’t think of a single reason why you should answer me, unless you’re interested in finding out who killed your brother-in-law and tried to kill you.”

  She glared at me, then winced as the taxi went over a rough patch of road. “Oh, get it over with.” She sighed and waved her hand in a gesture of resignation. “I suppose you want to know where I was taking Mandy and Miriam, and why.”

  “Well, actually—”

  “It’s rather funny, in a way, really. Dear Papa phoned me at the flat, when we were all there for a few minutes getting some things together. I hear nothing from him for years, and then suddenly, when I have no time, when I’m only interested in getting Mandy and Miriam away, he rings up. I didn’t tell him much, only that I was taking them for a rest, and he actually volunteered a place he owns, a cottage in Hampshire. It’s usually rented out, but he said it was vacant at the moment, and we could use it, that no one would disturb us there. He gets philanthropic, and look what happens!”

  “I see. I had wondered where you’d go, but I wanted to ask you something quite different. I need answers to some technical questions about television production. I know you’re a writer, but you do know something about the technical end?”

  “I’d have to, wouldn’t I? But why—”

  “I’m not even sure why, myself, but what I want to know is this: Suppose someone shot a videotape and sent it to a television station. If the tape was shot against a blank background, a white wall or something like that, could the station chroma-key in a different background?”

  “You do live in the dark ages, don’t you? You can do anything with electronics these days. You can put the prime minister in a cage with monkeys at the zoo if you want to. It doesn’t matter what the original background was. They just zap it out and put in anything they want to, and there are lots of techniques for doing it. Chroma key is pretty much used only for live studio production, the weather, that sort of thing.”

  “I see,” I said with satisfaction.

  “But if you’re saying you want to make some sweet little tape of your grandchildren and get a station to mix it in to a royal garden-party scene, forget it. There are production companies that do that sort of thing, but no TV station would bother with it. They’re not interested in amateur stuff.”

  “I was thinking of something a little different. Suppose someone videotaped something newsworthy. A plane crash, say. They might have scenes that the station would want, mightn’t they?”

  “Oh, well, yes, that is a different matter. A disaster, where the first person on the scene shot some distinctive footage—right, the stations would be fighting over that.”

  “And if the background was bad in some scenes? Out of focus, or simply too gory for public viewing—”

  “There is very little that is considered too gory for public viewing these days.”

  “Well, you know what I mean. If part of a scene was good, and part not so good, would they clean it up electronically?”

  “That depends. Sometimes the amateurishness gives a quality of spontaneity to that sort of footage. Then, too, there’s the question of truthfulness. The BBC won’t edit news film except for length, because of ethical issues. Some of the other stations aren’t quite so particular, but they all try to be careful not to show something that never, in fact, happened. If they don’t care about fooling the public, they certainly do care about lawsuits, and the legal departments won’t let them mess about very much.”

  She waited. I remained silent.

  “Well? Are you going to tell me why you’ve taken such a sudden interest in television production?”

  “I can’t, Gillian. Not quite yet. I haven’t quite worked out what it all might mean.”

  It was fortunate that we arrived at her flat just then, and she had to occupy herself with the exhausting business of getting out of the taxi and up a flight of stairs. I helped her as much as I could, but we were both out of breath by the time I got her settled in an armchair, with her crutches and the telephone within easy reach.

  “Would you like some tea, or something stronger?”

  “What I want is a great deal of whiskey, but they say I can’t have it. Do you know how to make coffee that’s drinkable?”

  “I do. How strong do you like it?”

  She had apparently lost interest in my questions, which was fine with me. When I left her, coffee in hand, she looked as if she might doze off before she had a c
hance to finish it.

  I was, despite the previous restless night, very wide awake on the train home. My still-damp clothes and shoes weren’t conducive to a nap, but worry was really what kept me awake. I had all the pieces now. I was convinced of it. The problem was what to do with them.

  Anthony Blake was looking more and more like England’s next prime minister. It was going to take some very delicate maneuvering to accuse him of murder.

  When I looked at my problem from that point of view, it almost took my breath away. It was one of the most important men in the country I was dealing with, here. Not quite the Prince of Wales, but an heir apparent, all the same. And my only proof, the only foundation for my shaky structure of if-and-maybe, was an extremely ambiguous note.

  I went over it all again in my mind. Doyle goes to London. He finds a note. He mulls it over and then gets in touch with Blake. How? Telephone, probably. He could have broken through the protective wall of secretaries simply by saying he was Blake’s son-in-law.

  It didn’t matter how. He had talked to Blake, probably on Tuesday, or maybe early Wednesday. Blake had soothed him, said he had put the wrong interpretation on the whole thing. Had said he couldn’t explain it over the phone.

  Why not? Well, the simplest lie, the lie I would have come up with, was that the note had to do with a delicate political situation. Then Blake could go on to say that he would be happy to meet Doyle somewhere and explain in detail.

  Okay. So Blake and Vanessa between them make plans. I was willing to bet that Vanessa made most of them. They arrange a lovely alibi. He makes a few comments, on videotape, about some genuinely important issue. Then how do they get it to the TV stations?

  Well, I could see Vanessa phoning the stations, in a huff because they hadn’t shown up for an arranged taping session. With her efficiency, she could quite easily convince the television people that it was someone on their staff who had messed up. That would put them on the defensive. They would then be delighted to accept the tape Vanessa had made, and air it as she asked, with the clock tower as background.